Escaping Carceri

[demiurge1138]

I'm running a planar game, and the players in it are on Agathys, the lowest layer of Carceri, looking for the Library of Ignorance. They were foolish enough to trust a cloaked, staff-carrying figure who said he could take them there and back again, so the maerrenoloth has abandoned them. Since it's a prison plane, it should be difficult at best for them to get out.

How do I do it? Is there a logical place I could put a portal where they could get to it with difficulty but still survive? They're average level 7, so I doubt they could deal with the plane's real high-ups, like Nerull or Apomps.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Demiurge out.

 

[clark411]

Neogi slavers come, find em- and they escape the spidership when it makes a deposit at some planar waystation?

I'd rather have em escape from the plausible-to-escape fire, rather than the essentially impossible-to-escape frying pan.

 

[EricNoah]

Escaping Carceri was the entire thrust of a short planescape campaign I ran a few years ago!

http://webpages.charter.net/ericnoah/noahrpg/ps3log.htm

In short -- the heroes must help the imprisoned god of the gautiere escape the prison his former worshippers created for him; once he is free, he brings the heroes to the Outlands.

I never posted the adventure notes for the second half of the campaign (it was right on the cusp of the 2E/3E switchover so had lots of 3E house rules in it, but I could e-mail you the file if you'd like).

 

[demiurge1138]

Thanks! My e-mail is demiurge1138 at gmail dot com.

I do like the neogi idea, especially since the players have run into neogi once before.

Demiurge out.

 

[Shemeska]

I'm running a planar game, and the players in it are on Agathys, the lowest layer of Carceri, looking for the Library of Ignorance. They were foolish enough to trust a cloaked, staff-carrying figure who said he could take them there and back again, so the maerrenoloth has abandoned them. Since it's a prison plane, it should be difficult at best for them to get out.

Wow, they willingly went to Agathys? Jesus... how high level were they at the time out of curiousity?

I've only once had a PC go to Agathys and that was to hunt down a petitioner and eventually it ended up involving a tripartate avatar of Apomps taking interest in the PC, or rather what the PC was mixed up in at the time.

Man... given the small size of Agathys you're pretty much screwed if you're there, trying to avoid freezing to the ground, avoiding the Gehreleths, and maybe staying out of the domains of a select few deities down there. If circumstance was right you could bargain with the 'leths or with a servant of Nerull. If you're on Agathys proper there's not much else down there except the petitioners on ice.

*ponder*

 

[demiurge1138]

They're only average 7th level, which means that gehreleths are exceedingly dangerous at best. They also suffer from an overall lack of common sense, which explains why they went to Agathys in the first place. At least they're now realizing that they needed to have a plan, and to never trust one of their party members when he says that he's got everything under control. So it might get better in the future... if they ever get off.

Demiurge out.

 

[Ruined]

I seem to recall a crazy DiTerrlizzi illustration of a graybeard hanging on to a rope/balloon, using that in an attempt to cross from one orb to the next. I think it was from one of the interior books to Planes of Conflict. It's a bit Oz-like, but you could have them come across some seemingly mad man with a contraption that won't get them off the plane, but has a risky chance to get them to the next higher layer. They'll still need a way to figure out how to get off of the Prison Plane, but I would rather that than have some tricky portal off Agathys. There are some hyper-intelligent prisoners there, so there should be no easy ways out for anyone.

 

[EricNoah]

Yep, a balloon contraption was part of the campaign I mentioned, too -- travelling from one orb to another was one step on the road out...

 

[D-rock]

They also suffer from an overall lack of common sense, which explains why they went to Agathys in the first place.out.

I guess so, if they have any concept of what the place is like at all.

 

[Shemeska]

Yep, a balloon contraption was part of the campaign I mentioned, too -- travelling from one orb to another was one step on the road out...

Only one problem though. Agathys only has a single orb surrounded by infinite void. There's nowhere to go but hope and pray that you can find a portal out.

Fiendish bargains, the miracle of some other people jumping into the same layer to find them and offer or sell a way out, or a deal with servitors of one of the deities of that layer (Nerull and Apomps being the only ones I can think of, and w/ Apomps see Fiendish bargains).

Or one of the frozen petitioners of the layer might know a way out, but only if you take them with you and promise to either return them to life or perform some (probably vile) task, and given the nature of Carcerian petitioners, things will likely sour before things get better.